Friday, December 18, 2015

Breakfast Links on Friday? Why not? Loretta and I are heading off on our annual holiday break from the blog and the rest of social media, but I couldn't go away without posting one more round of Breakfast Links. You're just getting them a bit early this week.
• What greed put asunder (a stunning 13thc. missal) scholarship can reunite.
• The untold story of the hairbrush.
• How Thomas Jefferson learned architecture.
• Piecing together the life of centenarian Mary Hicks (died 1870), who spent the last 27 years of her long life as an inmate in the Brentford Workhouse.
• Ten of England's most beautiful and historical synagogues.
• Image: Amazing photo of a woman cleaning casks for Tennents Brewery during World War One.
• The science of life and death in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.• Exploring Hyde Park's hidden pet cemetery.• Arelonger wordsfalling out of use because of texting and social media?
• Did you read this series? The Cherry Ames nurse books, published between 1943-1968.
• Dissecting the dream of the 1890s: A skype-date with those curiousneo-Victorians.• An American historian meets theAmerican Girl dolls.•Image: This unpicked 19thcbodiceof 18thc silkbrocade is equally stunning on the reverse side, where the weave creates a stripe.
• Clothes make the woman: a century of Chinese women and what they wore.
• Victorian adventures and terrible tales: the Illustrated Police News.• The historical stories that make Revolutionary War researchers laugh.• We can dream: some seriously amazing holiday party dressesfrom the Metropolitan Museum of Art.• The otherBoleyn girl'sdaughter.
• A pair of stunning mid-19thc. papier mache bookbindings with mother of pearl here and here.• A Georgianfarting club.• Didfalsified medieval historyhelp create feminism?
• The snowflake man from Vermont produced the first photographs of snowflakes in 1885.
• Image: Carbonized bread from Herculaneum, 79 CE.
• The poignant last letter of Mary Queen of Scotsbefore her execution.
• Designer Jacqueline Durran's 11thc-style costumes for the latest film version of Macbeth.
• The Georgian circulating library.
• How an intern saved a museum by discovering this Revolutionary War treasure in the attic.
• Just for fun: cartoonish Kate Beaton draws the painter J.M.W.Turner and some of this artistic contemporaries.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.Above: At Breakfast by Laurits Andersen Ring. Private collection.

Perfect timing! I asked the owner of a blog discussing Jefferson and Monticello the same questions just this morning:1. was Jefferson trained in architecture himself?2. if not, did he have an architect-colleague to help?3. Where did the Palladian taste come into Jefferson's thinking?4. did he visit original Palladian buildings in Vicenza? etc

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.